A Billion Suns by thedace

Greetings from Tarka Dal of the Vindaloovian empire!

I have decided to base my Billion Suns Corporation on the Vindaloovian empire which briefly appeared on an episode of Red Dwarf.

This fictional empire was extended upon by the Red Dwarf RPG and here is an overview –

Vindaloovians are a small, but proud, martial culture who descended from experimental GELFs that were left to evolve over millions of years with the aid of 20th century war movies and a plentiful supply of curry and other spicy foods (the Vindaloovian colonies are described as having “garlic nan trees” and rivers of madras).

Vindaloovians resemble humanoid eggs with a single prominent, blue eye in their tiny forehead above a horizontal mouth. They stand roughly one meter tall and are almost as broad, and have a wide variety of skin tones and hair colors (though they often shave their heads bald). They have only three digits (a thumb and two roughly equal length fingers) on either hand. Vindaloovian fashion leans heavily towards ostentatious military costumes; if it doesn’t have epaulets, spurred jackboots and a half-cape, they don’t want it.

Vindaloovians originally were highly xenophobic and aimed to destroy all other intelligent lifeforms, but have in recent times relaxed this to merely hating humans with a passion. Imperial edict is that humans are absolute scum, intergalactic vermin who cannot be trusted, and the official strategy, enforced by their aggressive society, is “brutally dismember first, ask questions later”.

Vindaloovian society consists of three tiers. The topmost tier are the high officials, a member of which is referred to as a Tarka, from whose number is selected the Emperor or Empress of the Vindaloovian Empire. Below them are the skilled middle class, which includes the military officers, whose official title is Bindi. The final tier makes up the majority of the labor and military rank-and-file, and carries the title of Grunti. Social mobility is possible through individual deeds, but does not apply to the Vindaloovian’s family unit (mainly because they reproduce through cloning vats and offspring are raised by the state).

Some Vindaloovians do rebel against the Imperial doctrine (which, among other things, requires a devout love of Wagner and Prokofiev) and are banished to wander Deep Space, either with fellow renegades or with motley bands of space drifters.

Credit to

https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wiki/Vindaloovian for the article.

I am going to build on this with my own story and ideas and look forward to doing so.

To build a fleet you need ships.

I decided upon some of the UCM Ships from Dropfleet commander.

A box of 8 Frigates was my first purchase.

https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/dropfleet-commander/33908-ucm-frigate-box

This was then followed by the purchase of a pair of UCM Cruisers.

https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/dropfleet-commander/33907-ucm-cruiser-box?search_query=ucm+cruisers&results=12

I love the utilitarian style of the UCM and the ships are fantastically detailed with many different build options making each ship reasonably unique.

The first ship completed and out of the dockyards.

I give you The Korma!

A frigate class so only able to pack a mild punch.

Also the engines smell of coconut.

Primed in GW Leadbelcher.

Two coats of Scale 75 instant shadow Black.

Engines, windows, sides and hangers painted white and then I added some Valejo blue ink.

I then applied some Valejo green ink to the sides and blended it together with the blue.

Finally I added 2 dots of red to the front of the ship.

Introducing

• The Balti
• The Aloo
• The Gobi
• The Saag

Attack Frigates of the mighty Vindaloovian Empire.

As the title suggests, I’ve now completed all 8 of my Frigates!

So, In no particular order.

• The Bombay
• The Potato
• The Cobra

Time for a group shot of the Vindaloovian fleet so far.

Next onto one of my capitol ships.

Watch this space.

So, while watching the Unofficial hobby hangout tonight I painted up one of my larger ships.

The model is a UCM cruiser from Dropfleet commander and is approximately 10cm long.

Painted in a very similar style to my frigates.

1. Primed with leadbelcher
2. Two coats of scale 75 instant shadow back.
3. White for the engines and energy weapon followed by blue ink.
4. Scale 75 instant Zucchini green on a number of the upper panels.
5. Details and few panels picked out in red.
6. A few pipes and smaller guns done in black.

My first game of A Billion suns.

Space is cold and so is gaming outside in April!

We decided on a Scale 3 game with it being a first outing for myself.

The Three contracts generated were

• Demolition contract
• Supply contract
• Rhexis Harvesting contract

A brief synopsis of the contracts respectively –

• Destroy 3 aging Nuka Cola facilities
• Supply a dying planet with humanitarian aid
• Harvest a volatile natural resource

I was playing as the Vindaloovian Empire, My good friend Nigel as Noodle Corp.

Jump gates opened either side of CM1981, a dying world.

Much needed aid had finally arrived, enough hopefully to tide over the remaining few people until their imminent extraction, or maybe a final meal.

The Cargo Ship of Noodle corp. was first to dock with one of several space elevators. Containers of high protein food and clean drinking water were made ready for offload.

From a second jump gate emerged a ship bearing the insignia of the Vindaloovian empire (a perfectly round poppadum, no beginning and no end)

The ship approached the planet at great speed and on a strange heading.

Then the attacked came!

The Docked Noodle corp. ship was a sitting duck, docked and with weapons powered down.

The Vindaloovian ship used its Powerful yet unwieldly mining laser to cut the stationary  Noodle corp. ship clean in half. Vital aid spilling out into the void of space along with the crew of the doomed ship.

This space elevator rendered useless was of no use to the Vindaloovians, so the ships heading was changed to the next closest one.

The Cargo of 100,000 litres Very hot Curry and 50,000 pints of Larger was unloaded without any sign of re enforcements from Noodle corp.

Once the cargo was emptied and the captain of the ship tipped (a Vindaloovian Tradition) engines were engaged and mission was accomplished.

Why the attack?

Vindaloovians are a proud people and a number of their people were trapped on the surface of the doomed planet.

Healthy food and liquid that doesn’t contain alcohol are poisonous to Vindaloovians. What kind of a last meal would a protein shake be anyway!

Part 2 to follow soon.

Meanwhile things were hotting up in system nk1829.

Two contracts up for grabs in this sector –

• Dotted around this system were a number of aging Nuka Cola facilities. The AI had gone a bit “funny” in these fully automated facilities. Demolition was required but the AI wouldn’t want to go quietly.
• At the centre of this system as the dense magnetic core of a failed Neutron star. The size of a Tennis ball but with the mass of a small planet, these commodities fetch a small fortune, often bought by incredibly rich CEOs and used as novelty paperweights.

The initiative was seized by Noodle Corp.

Two wings of fighters appeared from a jump point heading straight towards the nearest Nuka Cola Facility. Heavy fire was taken on the approach with a whole wing of fighters being completely destroyed. The remaining fighters now within range managed to download a virus to the AI. This, however came a little too late as seconds later, before the virus had time to sweep through the system, all of the facilities weapons systems opened up once again, destroying the remaining fighters.

Next to jump into the system was a Medium utility ship again bearing the Noodle Corp. insignia. This ship headed straight towards the Star core at full speed. A Mag lock was engaged on the core and a big payday was looking very likely. The Bridge crew had already started to celebrate their successful mission, breaking out the Space Whiskey and Rum. Suddenly the ship was plunged into dark red light and sirens started to wail all around. The two Vindaloovian Corvettes that had been approaching unnoticed for some time now had acquired a weapons lock. It was all over in seconds, the Noodle Corp. utility ship didn’t stand a chance and was ripped to shreds by Turbo blaster fire.

The captains of the 2 Vindaloovian Corvettes were in conference  congratulating each other on a well executed attack when something entirely unexpected happened. The AI on 2 of the nearby Nuka Cola facilities opened fire, completely unprovoked, with one of the Corvettes being badly damaged in the attack.

The final instalment to follow.

This novelty paperweight / core of a dead star must really be wanted by someone high up in Noodle Corp as 4 ships jumped into the sector!

Two Noodle corp gunships quickly flanked the one remaining Vindaloovian Corvette and blew it into space dust, but not before it could get off a tight beam transmission.

The other 2 Noodle Corp ships had one thing in mind as they headed straight for the star core and engaged Maglocks.

The final communication of the Vindaloovian seemed to have been picked up as through a jump gate came reinforcements.

Three ships in total.

The gunship headed for the closest Nuka cola facility, it opened fire with everything it had but it wasn’t quite enough to take out the target.

Meanwhile the two utility ships headed for the star core and engaged in a giant game of tug of war with the Noodle corp ships.

After many hours of stalemate there was a critical component failure aboard one of the Vindaloovian ships. The Noodle corp ships sensed their opportunity, diverted full power to engines and made it away with their pize.

Onboarded the malfunctioning Vindaloovian ship the head of engineering was spaced and the fleets ships returned home empty handed.

The day belonged to Noodle corp but a great time was had by both players.

My final battleship for the moment.

The Phaal!

Sticking with the simple less is more theme.

Next on to some Fighters that I’ve already started to painstakingly base.

More on this later.

There was a sneak peek of a few bases of fighters in my last update.

I’m glad to say that 4 bases of fighters are now complete!

The ingredients were as follows

• Some lovely fighter models from Brigade.
• Some standard round bases from Warlord
• Some fishing float stems

I drilled 3 holes in each base and holes in each fighter.

The float stems were inserted into these holes and glued into place.

The ships were placed on top and also glued.

Next I primed in mechanicum grey.

The “y wing” ships were painted using a Scale 75 instant paints dispel mana.

The stripe on the top was a Goblin green.

Engines, as with the rest of my fleet were white with a blue ink.

The other fighters were painted with a Scale 75 Mana potion blue.

Goblins Green highlights on the edges

Gunmetal Centre sections.